(ID)entity (Phoenix Horizon Book 2)

by PJ Manney

  “Hey,” he said.

  Two officers—Daryl Robinson, trim with an equally trim mustache, and Raymond Diaz, short and nuggety—intercepted him.

  “What can we do for you?” Diaz asked, looking Tom over carefully.

  Tom searched the net regarding undercover cops approaching beat cops: how-to videos, academy manuals, bad TV shows. Anything. He found a lot of bad TV, some disgruntled ex-cops spilling some beans, but not a lot he could use. His hands were still in the air, in anticipation of arrest. “Pretend to arrest and wand me,” he said to them.

  “Now why would we do that?” asked Officer Robinson in a laconic drawl.

  “I’m UC. And they’re not.” According to an ex-police officer’s blog, UC meant undercover cop.

  A drone hovered over Shaved Head, Cheekbones, and the Lexus.

  “Tag ’em?” asked Robinson.

  “Yeah,” said Tom. He had no idea what “tag ’em” meant, but he assumed the drones and street cameras would tag and ID them for later pursuit if the cops didn’t take them in now.

  Robinson and Diaz shared a look.

  “It’s go time,” said Diaz. He slammed Tom’s head to the hood of the SUV and grabbed both his wrists to handcuff him.

  Robinson wanded his body.

  Local, state, and federal agencies CNEM-ID tagged their agents in the same place: the upper left arm. CNEM stood for “conductive nanowire embedded mesh,” a thin layer of elastomer permanently attached or implanted subcutaneously. It was faster than using biometrics, which they could still use later to confirm ID. The cops’ wands—ostensibly used to check for hidden weapons and illegal substances—also contained a CNEM-ID reader that could distinguish LEO tags from others. The drug trade had taken to chipping mules with CNEM/GPS so they could be accounted for at all times. So had gangs. Cops needed to tell the difference between criminal tagging and agency tagging while making sure no one else could.

  When the wand hit Tom’s arm, the secret data popped up on Robinson’s LEO-GO: Detective Saul Alonzo. Age 22, Long Beach Police Department, Gang and Narcotics Division. Tom had no idea if his pursuers had anything to do with drugs or gangs, but it gave him a good cover story.

  BZZZT!

  His brain buzzed. And blinked out. A shock cascaded down his trunk and spread to his extremities. From an outsider’s perspective, it might have lasted only a second, but from his digital perspective, it felt both like a brief cut in the system and a potentially huge loss of data. His entire body spasmed. He seized stiff for 1.3 seconds of full body catatonia. Then he collapsed.

  “Shit!” said Robinson.

  Both cops dropped to assess Tom. Robinson checked his pulse. Diaz checked his mouth, to make sure he hadn’t swallowed his tongue.

  “Put . . . me in . . . car,” Tom sputtered.

  Diaz hustled him into the back seat, got in front himself, and began inputting information into the dash computer. Robinson stood in front of the door. He spoke into his live collarcam, requesting an ambulance.

  “No!” moaned Tom.

  “You’re having a seizure!” said Robinson.

  “It’ll pass . . . Always does. No hospital. They’ll find me.”

  “Cavalry rides again?” joked Diaz.

  “Trust me. It’s okay. Happens once a month. Since I was a kid. Probably outta shape. All that running . . . ”

  The cops laughed. Robinson said, “And they let you pass the physical with that?”

  “I’m that good,” said Tom.

  The cops laughed harder.

  Tom sent a diagnostic analysis to Ruth and Miss Gray Hat. Maybe they could see what the problem was. From his body’s perspective, it felt like a wiring issue.

  “What d’ya need?” asked Diaz.

  “Ride to Long Beach. Belmont Pier, near Queen Mary. Gotta make a drop.” A small craft from Island White would be at the pier to pick him up.

  The partners looked at each other again, now incredulous. It was over an hour away in traffic. “We’re no robocar service,” said Robinson.

  “Call it in,” said Tom.

  Robinson looked to his partner. “That’s commitment, man. He’s a fuckin’ animal . . . ”

  “Thanks. Mind if I rest back here?” asked Tom.

  “Fine by me,” said Diaz. He sent the request, which was accepted, then programmed the dashboard. The SUV rolled away toward the pavement.

  As they drove past the Lexus, Shaved Head and Cheekbones gave the cruiser the glare of death.

  Tom slumped into the worn back seat, which smelled like flop sweat, urine, and blood. The facial-recognition search for Shaved Head and Cheekbones finally came up: Reggie “Coops” Cooper and Jerry Santiago. Both had been accused, but never convicted, of a variety of crimes, including crypto-laundering and tainted synthopioid production for a cartel based in Arizona. There were connections in Nevada to bankers and a state senator.

  ZZZAP!

  His body spasmed, but the two cops didn’t notice. Jaw clamped shut and vocal cords frozen, Tom struggled to breathe. He tried to send an SOS message to Ruth, but while he had external access, Major Tom’s server access suddenly went only one way. He couldn’t transmit.

  Frozen in the back seat, he was helpless.

  And that’s when the video arrived.

  The video message was sent only to Tom. The sender was anonymous. He looked for a time stamp. It was live.

  He recognized the location immediately: the Potsdam house in Pacific Heights, San Francisco. The fish-eye lens captured a wide shot of the kitchen. Amanda faced away, standing at the sink, cleaning dishes. Peter Jr. hummed happily in a playpen in the corner of the expansive room.

  “Mama?” said Peter Jr.

  “Yes, love?” said Amanda.

  “Juice?” said Peter, jumping up.

  “Juice what, love?”

  “Pease? Juice, pease?” He jumped faster.

  Amanda walked to the fridge and took out a container of apple juice. As she put it on the counter and reached for a cabinet, Tom watched the back of a young woman—statuesque with short, choppy blonde hair—enter the kitchen with a slight limp.

  In the reflection of the shiny appliances, Amanda saw the intruder creeping up behind her. She screamed and spun. “Who are you?”

  Winter held her hands up. “I’m here to give you a message. From Carter.”

  Amanda shook. “But . . . how . . . ”

  Extending her right hand, Winter slowly brought it to Amanda’s face, settled a palm gently on her cheek.

  “Will you let me tell you what he wants you to know?” asked Winter.

  “Y-yes,” said Amanda.

  Leaning in, Winter whispered something unintelligible, her lips hidden behind Amanda’s hair. By the message’s length, Tom guessed it was about ninety words long. Amanda’s eyes went wide. Winter nodded. Then she kissed Amanda.

  In high-definition video, Tom could see Amanda’s carotid artery pound in terror. Or was it excitement?

  Winter reached her left hand into her back pocket, and a tiny syringe appeared, attached to the ring on her finger. She caressed Amanda’s neck, then clasped it firmly.

  There was no struggle. Amanda’s eyes widened in terror, then slumped, and in seconds she was out. Winter gently lowered her to the floor.

  “Mama! Mama!”

  Winter subvocalized, and two armed lackeys appeared with a large black canvas bag.

  “Where you, Mama?” asked Peter Jr.

  The video followed Winter into the corner of the breakfast area where Peter played. She looked around at the Legos. The trains. The drawings.

  “Where Mama?” the boy asked again.

  “I’ll take you to her.” Winter reached down and hefted the toddler up in her arms, placing one hand around his tiny neck. She stared into those uncomprehending Bernhardt-blue eyes. Tiny hands explored Winter’s face. With an unreadable expression, she stared for 7.9 seconds at the boy’s innocent face, then sighed. She looked straight at the camera. “Goddamn you,” she sai
d. And she ran out the door with the boy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Tom couldn’t fathom what he had witnessed. Unexpectedly, the damper on his outside messaging lifted, and his body stopped seizing. He could move of his own volition. Panicked, he sent Miss Gray Hat the video and the data about his server attack.

  “This isn’t easy to decrypt,” she said.

  “Just do it!”

  In the meantime, he searched. He hacked into the server at the Potsdam house and looked through all the security cameras. The house was eerily empty and quiet. He checked San Francisco city cams and couldn’t find Winter and her goons. Nothing from satellite cameras or drones. They seemed to have materialized in the house, then disappeared.

  Panic flooded his body with adrenaline, more intensely than it had at the beach. Why was he covered in fresh sweat? His heart wanted to explode in fear. Contemplating harm to Amanda and his child was more than his body could manage. Seeing Winter threaten Peter Jr., imagining the toddler’s murder . . . the feelings were devastatingly different from when Tom 1 had visited them.

  If this was parenthood, then damn biology.

  Miss Gray Hat interrupted his reverie. “I found an inbox. We can send them a message back.”

  “Damn right,” responded Tom.

  Robinson looked at Tom in the rearview mirror. “Where do you want us to drop you?”

  Tom tried to speak, but it took a few tries, and he sounded hoarse. “Supermarket at Ocean and Termino, thanks.”

  He sent a message to the mysterious inbox. How could you have managed this all by yourself? You never could before. You always needed me.

  In ten seconds, a video reply appeared. The footage was taken in a dark room. It didn’t look like the Potsdam house. Winter’s smile was coy. Seductive. Kissing the top of the little boy’s head, she said, “You’ve always underestimated me, my dear. And yourself. Together, we’re really something.”

  And then it cut out.

  Fresh sweat broke out over Tom’s body.

  The SUV pulled into the supermarket lot. With great effort, Tom pulled himself upright and waited for Robinson to open the door.

  “Funny place for a drop,” said Robinson.

  “I need food,” Tom said.

  “Adios, amigo,” said Diaz, and he held out his fist.

  Tom’s body didn’t respond quickly, as though he didn’t know what an extended fist meant. Then he bumped it.

  Diaz looked at him with squinty eyes. Robinson missed the exchange. “Okay,” Diaz finally said. “We’re outta here.” He tapped Robinson, and the two got into the police cruiser.

  Groggy, Tom stumbled down 39th Place toward Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier, where a launch craft for Island White and the Zumwalt would be waiting. He wanted Ruth and Miss Gray Hat to run diagnostics as soon as possible. How did Winter get inside his system, and why did she let him go? Did she plant a virus or malware? Was she a cat to his mouse?

  He trudged toward the end of the pier, where at water level, a small dock was housed next to a bait-and-snack shack. The sun was setting over the HMS Queen Mary. Even distracted, he was impressed by how the beauty of refracted light touched his biology in ways it couldn’t when he was a digital entity reading a landscape from a streetcam. It was magic hour, where the air glowed golden and the clouds splashed in streaks of orange and purple, but the lights along the pier had yet to turn on and ruin the show. Attracted to sunlight at a cellular level, he could enjoy the real world again.

  A young woman stood among the fishermen packing up their gear to head home with the day’s catch. He could see only the back of her, leaning on the rails, seemingly admiring the sunset. Her choppy blonde hair made him freeze midstride. She turned, her face bemused.

  “Hello there, my dear,” said Winter.

  All the mental and physical jangling back in the SUV had knocked Tom off his game. How could Winter be here if she had been in a dark room with his son? And how did she know where he was? He looked around, confused.

  She seemed to read the thoughts broadcast on his face. “My dear, you’re stupider in each incarnation. I recoded the time on the video. It happened yesterday. Not now.” She shook her head sadly and pointed toward Island White and the Zumwalt, a mile and a half away, west-southwest. “Should have stuck with the Pequod. Much classier vessel. This hideous hunk of steel is about as stealth as my hot bod. By the way, you haven’t complimented me on how marvelous I look.”

  Tom tried to tamp down the rage rising inside him. He could feel his blood vessels dilating, his heart racing, again. But he had to stay calm. Keep this creature talking. He recorded a live feed and transmitted it to the team, his eyes like cameras, though the images would be distorted through neural-transference disturbance.

  Winter sauntered down the pier, and Tom had no choice but to follow. “I knew the moment that boy’s body was missing, it’d be the one you’d chose,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Why?”

  “Oh, sweetheart . . . It’s so”—she gestured at his body and squished up her face, prettily—“plebeian. Does anyone take you seriously?”

  “As usual, you’re a fucking peacock.”

  Winter sniffed. “I’m special. And I always will be.”

  “At least I didn’t kidnap and kill mine.”

  Winter looked surprised. “I’m not dead! And neither are you. This girl’s having a hell of a more interesting life than she would have!”

  “Can you hear her screaming inside? Do you enjoy it?”

  Winter’s face fell, her charming affect wiped away. “Took care of that. No more dual processing system. Just mine.”

  “You bastard. Can’t even let her go when you’re done with her.”

  “Why would I let her go? I’m quite partial to this body.” She seductively slithered closer. “I like who I am. If you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty fucking fabulous!”

  Tom noticed. His visual cortex, gonadal steroids, and penis noticed.

  Winter saw it and giggled. “Oh, Pete. How cute. Youth becomes you. You know, in some ways, it’s quite freeing, especially since I ripped out anything that might get in the way. Like a uterus. Nasty things.” She stroked his cheek slowly, like she had with Amanda.

  He breathed in, and her scent overwhelmed him. She smelled of sex and oblivion, cloaked in the smooth silk of possibility. He took a quick step back out of her reach and said through gritted teeth, “I thought you wanted children.”

  “I have a child, last I checked.” Her eyes glittered. “He’s so much sweeter than I thought he’d be. Those blue eyes . . . ” She sighed. “Missed them. That little honey’s going to be a ladykiller someday. Unlike his daddy.”

  Winter kicked at his groin, but Tom saw it coming and dodged. Instantaneously, she spun again and landed a kick square to his head. Tom staggered back, a trickle of blood running from his ear. He responded with a blistering one-two combo assault on Winter’s solar plexus.

  Clearly they had both downloaded martial-arts techniques. They could both speed-compute punches and kicks. She knew Tae Kwon Do, a graceful, elegant martial art, surprisingly deadly. It suited Carter’s dual personality well. Major Tom had downloaded Brazilian jiujitsu, but it didn’t feel right, so he let Edwin’s body lead, funny moves like running in place before a punch. It wasn’t pretty, but Rosero knew Krav Maga. Quickly accessing suggestions from the web, Tom kicked, sweeping Winter off her feet. He dodged and weaved, grabbed legs and arms, and landed some satisfying punches of his own.

  People on the pier moved in closer. Some whipped out cameras. Winter rushed Tom, pushing him closer to the gathering GOs recording a young Latino male beating up a pretty white woman.

  Was Carter purposely staging this narrative? And what was the story?

  Winter reached down her cleavage and pulled a knife from a sheath. The crowd cheered, thinking they were in on a joke. Unarmed, Tom didn’t know what else Winter might have stowed. Time to get to the ship.

  “Where’s the launch?
” he voice messaged Ruth.

  “Entrance ramp. Four hundred feet on left. Docks in ten seconds,” said Ruth.

  “Bring it in, keep running, but don’t fully dock!”

  In the distance, the sound of sirens erupted. He turned and ran down the concrete pier. Winter chased after him, losing some ground because her legs were shorter, but it was clear she had trained for her new persona. He guessed microbivores and respirocytes, too, like him.

  Tom reran the last few minutes of his memory. Winter had only breathed when she spoke and after thirty seconds of running. Just like him. Perhaps she also took enough steroids to build muscle. Perhaps they were both designed for this.

  He pumped his arms and legs as fast as they’d go. Second fight-and-flight in a day. And it still felt good. What kind of life had Rosero lived, that this was his body’s preferred state?

  Careening down the long ramp to the boat dock, Winter was only twenty feet behind.

  He approached the slip, where the launch idled a few feet from the dockside . . .

  BZZZT!

  The tremors shot through his head, cascaded down his torso and extremities. Full seizure. He fell hard onto the concrete dock, bruising his hips, shoulders, and head.

  Winter ambled up to his body, flipped him onto his back, and straddled his hips, grinding into his pelvis. Then she put her hands around his throat and squeezed.

  “You took respirocytes, too, so this might take a while,” she said. “But hey, it’s a nice evening for a strangulation. And between the lack of air, your youth, and—well, if I say so myself—me, you should pop up underneath me like a turkey timer.” She winked. “Or I could hurry up and crush your windpipe, or break your neck and dump you over the side. You’d be completely helpless. Shall I? I’d love to see what happens. You know, out of scientific curiosity.”

  Her head suspended over his, Tom could do nothing but watch her. He had some oxygen left, but he wasn’t sure how much. She leaned over slowly, tightened her grip, and licked his face with a long, languorous brush of her tongue. “I want you to know what humiliation feels like. Because from where I’m sitting, it tastes so good.” She rose. “You’ll get up when I let you. Bye-bye, sweetie.” She winked again, blew him an air kiss, and sauntered away, hips swaying insolently.